Roof goes on as fog descends

We’ve been subjected to an awful lot of rain this winter. January and February both saw seemingly never-ending storms and downpours, and anyone with half an eye on the news will have seen the devastating flooding on the Somerset Levels.

The flooded Somerset Levels seen from the top of Glastonbury Tor, January 2014

When we’ve mentioned to people that we’re having a new dairy built in Somerset, we’ve been asked more than a few times: have you been flooded?

The Somerset Levels lie to the South of the Mendip Hills, and the drainage of this low-lying land has been carried out since before the Middle Ages. Yet, as we have seen this year, man’s attempts to control nature do not always work, and water levels remained very high during the winter rains. Our thoughts have been with our friends to the South for the past few months. Puxton Court Farm lies to the north of the Mendip Hills in an area known as the North Somerset Levels, where flooding has not occurred (touch wood!). We are happy to say that the site of the dairy was spared the inundation!

Nevertheless, stormy weather did hinder the build at the very start, so we are pleased and very excited to see real progress being made now that the weather is settling down. On Friday last week, Todd and Alan, our project manager from Capital Refrigeration, made a site visit in order to check floor levels and make some final measurements now that the steel columns are up.

It was exciting to see that the building now has a roof! The foggy weather made for some very atmospheric conditions and great photographs, although the damp air and water droplets played havoc with Alan’s laser measure.

In a few months time, Gorwydd Caerphilly will be made underneath this roof!

The whole move is beginning to feel very real and while Maugan is busy making cheese back home at Gorwydd, he and Todd are also sanding down 150 year old cheese presses ready for use and planning how to move the cheeses and the recipe with minimum disruption to supply, as well as, importantly, our precious bacteria and moulds!